1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to tracking travel. More specifically, the present invention relates to tracking vehicle travel and expenditures related to business.
2. Description of the Related Art
Business travel is becoming an increasing part of every businessperson's business activities. Generally, many business expenses are considered tax-deductible in the United States and in other countries. Businesses report business deductions such as business travel to tax agencies such as the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Often, business owners, employees, and other people involved in a business use a tax reimbursement form offered by their employer or business to report business expenses.
One tax expense offered by the IRS, for example, is a deduction for business travel related to the distance the businessperson traveled using a vehicle such as an automobile. For example, in 2005, the tax deduction is $0.33 a mile. At that deduction rate, a 1000-mile trip could lead to a $320 tax deduction. Unfortunately, the IRS has strict rules to claim the mileage deduction. Currently, a business traveler must keep accurate records of the mileage, the purpose of the trip, and with whom they met with. To meet the IRS deduction rules, business travelers often use notes and keep travel logs to verify the distance and purpose of the travel. As travel often involves a mixture of business and pleasure, it is generally difficult to keep an accurate accounting of the business travel. Many business travelers find accounting for business travel a cumbersome task. Due to the arduous accounting, many business travelers just estimate their travel mileage, or worse, just use a percentage of the automobile odometer reading at the end of the year without very little if any verification as their tax deductible mileage.
Conventional systems used to track mileage generally involve the user having to remember certain items to verify the trip such as geographic location. Some have tried to solve this problem, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,856,933 describes a key-fob style mileage tracker that uses the opening and closing of the vehicle door to start and stop the mileage tracking and can be used to store mileage for business trips with GPS information. Unfortunately, such systems do not provide proper verification of the business trip for tax purposes, further such systems have no way of identifying the user of the vehicle making it more difficult to verify that the individual actually made the trip.
Therefore, what is needed is a method and apparatus configured to allow a business traveler to accurate account for business mileage that is easy to use and cost effective.